Vol.3 No.

12 I December 2014

The Spirit of Homebuilt Aviation I www.eaa.org

A Piel Beryl
A vintage homebuilt

The Determinator
Klaus Savier’s experimental test bed

Eagle
Meet the Legal

Ultralight or
homebuilt fun!
TOWER FREQUENCY
The Pelton family and their Cessna 195: Jack, Rose, Christine, Ryan, and Christy with
grandsons Noah and little Owen.
Help Give the Gift of Flight
BY JACK J. PELTON
ALL RESEARCH SHOWS that a majority of us who fly have a family
member who is also a pilot or is deeply involved in aviation in
some other capacity. It could be a parent, grandparent, aunt or
uncle, or even a more distant relative. But the link is solid.
Families have been very successful at passing down the excite-
ment and challenge of personal aviation.
But what about people who are not born into an aviation
family? How can we best show them the great joy and feeling
of accomplishment we all draw from personal aviation? EAA
can be a big part of that solution.
EAA is, after all, one really big family made up of people
from all walks of life who love aviation. Our Founder Paul
Poberezny repeated countless times that “airplanes bring us
together, but friends we make keep us together.” Nothing
could be truer.
Our biggest family event happens at Oshkosh every summer
where we get to meet and greet old friends, and more impor-
tantly, make new friends. Oshkosh welcomes anyone with an
interest in aviation into the EAA family and shows them up-
close and hands-on what personal aviation is all about.
Our nearly 1,000 chapters certainly function as families
throughout the year meeting to share experiences, dispense
advice learned from building all sorts of airplanes, and pro-
mote the value of personal aviation to the community.
And the nearly 2 million youngsters who have gone flying
in our Young Eagles program now know the freedom and
excitement of personal flight firsthand. And they also have
new family members—the pilots and chapter members who
organized the Young Eagles rally—who can guide them to a
future in aviation.
I think about our EAA family at this time of the year
because Rose and I are finalizing plans to celebrate the joy of
the season with our own children and grandchildren. And I bet
you are doing the same.
2 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
We have done our best to pass on our values and passions
and traditions to our kids and grandkids, and experiencing per-
sonal aviation is a big part of that. Actually going flying is an
important part of that tradition, but so is telling aviation stories,
reliving the experiences we have had over the years, and even
passing on the tales from earlier generations. Shared experi-
ences, shared traditions, and shared interests are what bond
families and any other group of humans together.
To keep the EAA family and what it means to all of us going,
we need your help.
Volunteers are essential for almost every EAA activity
whether it be at a chapter event that welcomes the community
or among the many thousands who make our annual convention
at Oshkosh possible.
Young Eagles flights are possible only because so many thou-
sands of you donate your time, your airplane, and pick up the
costs. And I thank each of you.
But to continue our work of growing the aviation family EAA
also needs donations. Your gift of any size will be very helpful.
Many members are including EAA in their planned giving in the
same way they plan for the future of their families. There are
many opportunities to support EAA, and in every case your
donation is tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.
Personal aviation faces many challenges, and EAA works every
day to resolve threats to our freedom to fly. But in the joyous holi-
day season when we gather with family and friends to share, I ask
you to please think of EAA as part of your family. Together we can
be certain the excitement, challenge, and fun of personal aviation
carries on to the new generation the same way all families cele-
brate the experiences and traditions they hold most dear.
Rose and I, the EAA board of directors, and everyone at our
Oshkosh headquarters wish you and yours a very merry
Christmas, a happy New Year, and a joyous holiday season with
your family close and together.
 Vol.3 No.12 I December 2014 CONTENTS

Features
EAA PUBLICATIONS
Founder: Paul H. Poberezny
Publisher: Jack J. Pelton,
EAA Chairman of the Board
Vice President of Communities
and Member Programs: Rick Larsen 08 Leonard Milholland’s 16 Keeping up a
Editor-in-Chief: J. Mac McClellan Legal Eagle Family Tradition
Homebuilding Community Manager: A popular plans-built ultralight Randy Weselmann and his Piel Beryl
Charlie Becker BY DAN GRUNLOH BY BUDD DAVISSON
Editor: Mary Jones/EditEtc. LLC
Senior Graphic Designer: Chris Livieri 24 Klaus Savier’s Determinator
News Editor: Ric Reynolds He makes speed mods look EZ
Copy Editor: Colleen Walsh BY LYNNE WAINFAN
Multimedia Journalist: Brady Lane
Visual Properties Administrator:
Jason Toney
Contributing Writers: Charlie Becker,
Marino Boric, Sean Curry, Budd
Departments
Davisson, Dan Grunloh, John Mangold, 02 Tower Frequency 06 News from HQ
and Lynne Wainfan BY JACK J. PELTON NEWS FROM EAA

04 Homebuilder’s Corner 36 Hints for Homebuilders

BY CHARLIE BECKER That’s Not Normal
ADVERTISING BY SEAN CURRY

Display
Sue Anderson Columns
Mailing Address: 32 What Our Members Are Building
P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 2014 Perseverance Awards
Phone: 920-426-4800 BY JOHN MANGOLD
Fax: 920-426-4828
E-mail: experimenter@eaa.org
Website: www.EAA.org 38 Under the Cowl
Introducing the D-motor
Need to change your address or have BY MARINO BORIC
other membership questions?
Call 800-564-6322 (800-JOIN EAA).
44 Ultralight World
EAA® and SPORT AVIATION®, the EAA Logo® Six Chuter International Powered Parachutes Announces
and AERONAUTICATM are registered trade- New Ultralight P3 Lite
marks, trademarks, and service marks of the REPRINTED FROM THE SIX CHUTER INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER
Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc. The use
of these trademarks and service marks without
the permission of the Experimental Aircraft As-
sociation, Inc. is strictly prohibited.

On the cover: Dennis Scott’s Legal Eagle XL takes to the air.

(Photography courtesy of Dennis Scott)

EAA Experimenter 3
HOMEBUILDER’S CORNER
2014 in Review
Homebuilding victories and challenges
BY CHARLIE BECKER
WITH WINTER SETTLING in here in Oshkosh, flying will be put on
the shelf and my full attention will be back on my homebuilding
projects. Given the weather we experience during a Wisconsin
winter, I don’t think it was a coincidence that Wisconsin became
a hotbed for the homebuilding movement. The weather is par-
ticularly well suited to hunkering down and working on your
project. The end of the year is always a good time to take stock
of what you have accomplished during the year, so let’s look at
some of the highlights for EAA and the homebuilder in 2014.
After more than a year’s work with the FAA, we were able
to make a historic change in the way we flight test aircraft. For
the first time ever, a homebuilder now has the option of having
a second pilot onboard the aircraft during Phase 1 flight testing.
We are hopeful that this new option will decrease the num-
ber of fatal accidents that occur during that time of greatest
exposure. We implore all of our members who choose to use
this option to do so with responsibility by understanding and
following the guidance in Advisory Circular 90-116. We want to
be able to show the FAA that this additional privilege will not
be taken lightly or abused. It will help us pave the way for more
options in the future if we are successful.
On a personal note, your EAA staf completed its Zenith CH
750 STOL project that was started back in September of 2012.
I had announced in this column in January of this year that my
goal was to lead this project to completion by AirVenture 2014.
With a lot of hard work by a number of diferent EAA staf, the
aircraft was signed of the day prior to the start of convention.
Just made it! The aircraft is now finished with Phase 1 flight
testing and has become our sport pilot-eligible aircraft in the
EAA Employee Flying Club. It was a great way for a number of
diferent staf here to learn about homebuilding.
Probably the biggest threat we faced this year was from the
FAA’s proposed modification of FAA Order 8130. The pro-
4 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
posed update in this policy document would have seriously
confused FAA inspectors in the field regarding the ability to
fly homebuilts over “densely populated areas.” Fortunately, we
were able to make our case against this change with top FAA
personnel and are confident that the crisis is over, but we are
still waiting to see the revised draft of this document before
we consider it a victory.
The other major policy issue we fought on behalf of home-
builders was the FAA Airports division’s proposed revision of
the definition of an “aeronautical activity.” This definition is
critical as things that fall outside of the definition can put FAA
airport grant money at risk; something no airport wants to do.
The good news is that for the first time ever, final assembly of
a homebuilt was recognized as an aeronautical activity. The
bad news is that leaves all the other construction phases of a
homebuilt outside the definition. I really can’t think of some-
thing more “aeronautical” than building an aircraft, regardless
of what part of the process you are working on! We are still
battling on this one, and the jury is still out.
Every year, our annual convention, EAA AirVenture Osh-
kosh, is a highlight. You never know exactly why going into it,
but it never disappoints. This year, homebuilding took center
stage with the construction of the One Week Wonder, a Zenith
CH 750 Cruzer, right at show center. It was a huge success. Lit-
erally thousands of people participated in the construction, and
many more were introduced to the opportunity to build your
own aircraft. I’m hopeful that “build an aircraft” was added to
lots of bucket lists because of the One Week Wonder and that
this project inspires many people to build.
All in all, it was a very good year for homebuilding. Thank
you for being an EAA member. I hope that you and your
loved ones have a very merry holiday season and a prosper-
ous new year!
 Get Hands-on.
The skills you need from the experts you trust.
For workshop dates, locations and costs,
visit SportAir.org or call 1-800-967-5746. SportAir
Workshops
Sign up now for the January 24-25 workshop in Oshkosh, WI.

EAA SportAir Workshops are sponsored by Copyright © 2014 EAA

NEWS FROM HQ

The Wright Stuff

EAA CHAPTER 983, Granbury, Texas, pre-
sented the Wright Brothers Master Pilot
Award to 13 members in November in
what FAA ofcials claim to be the most
ever presented at one ceremony. The
FAA Safety Team (FAASTeam) confers
the Master Pilot Award to pilots who
have been certificated and flying for 50
consecutive years without an accident.
Chapter 983 also has six existing Mas-
ter Pilots, and four more members who are Newly awarded Wright Master Pilots from EAA Chapter 983 include (from left, front row) Jerome
thought to be eligible, giving the chapter a McChristian, David Guinn, Bob Satterwhite, Bill Rose, Larry Hale, and Ed Brown. Row 2: Charlie Hamilton,
potential 23 Wright Brothers Master Pilots FAA SW Region FAAST Team, Robert Winegar, Mack Angel, Murray Sloan, Marv Jensen, Roe Walker, John
in its ranks. It is an honor and a testament Parks, and Joe Murphy, FAA DFW FAAST team supervisor. Missing is Ray Nasypany.
to the pilot’s skill, safety record, longevity,
and continued health to qualify. Christian, EAA 451902; Ray Nasypany, Eanes, Terry Strange, Henry Erlich, and
EAA Chapter 983 is based at The EAA 474678; John Parks, EAA 140293; Jim Crain. Joe Murphy, local FAA Safety
Landings Airpark, 65 miles southwest Billy Rose, EAA 110449; Bob Satterwhite, Team leader, along with other FAA digni-
of the Dallas/Fort Worth International EAA 420441; Murray Sloan, EAA 795562; taries conducted the presentations.
Airport with more than 150 aircraft, heli- Roe Walker, EAA 536104; Ed Brown; and They will each receive a certificate
copters, and ultralights based there. The Bob Winegar. and lapel pin, and their names will be
list of honorees November 8 includes According to Tom Woodward, Chap- added to the Wright Brothers Master
Mack Angel, EAA 211971; David Guinn, ter 983 newsletter editor, the chapter’s Pilot Award Roll of Honor, which lists
EAA 441451; Larry Hale, EAA 107106; previous Wright Brothers Master Pilots close to 3,000 Master Pilots. EAA ofers
Marv Jensen, EAA 420767; Jerome Mc- include Bruce Wilson, Sid Tucker, Tom its congratulations to all the pilots!

‘Sponsor a Classroom’ to Help Students

Discover Aviation
EAA’S NEW SPONSOR a Classroom initia-
tive launched in October will provide
opportunities for Wisconsin students to
discover aviation. Individuals and groups
are welcome to contribute to the efort to
bring students to the EAA AirVenture
Museum in Oshkosh, where they’ll dis-
cover aviation as well as engage in
science, technology, engineering, and
math (STEM) activities.
Each $600 raised will cover the cost of
transportation, museum admission, and
activities for a class of up to 25 students.
Along with individual contributions,
museum visitors through the remainder of
2014 are invited to participate through small
donations when they visit the museum or
make a purchase through its gift shop. Fea-
tured items at EAA’s online store will also
include opportunities to contribute.
Funds raised now through the end of
2014 will be used to welcome classes to
EAA during the 2015-2016 school year.
School groups can apply for the program
scholarships beginning in early 2015.
The initial goal of the program
is to serve as many as 40 classes
from throughout Wisconsin during
the initial year of the Sponsor a Class-
room initiative.

Quad City Aircraft’s Dave Goulet Passes

QUAD CITY ULTRALIGHT Aircraft
Corporation’s co-founder and president
Dave Goulet passed away on November
13, 2014, following a brief illness. He
was 68.
Goulet started Quad City Ultralight
Aircraft Company in 1983 with the late
Charles “Chuck” Hamilton, introducing the
first Challenger ultralight kit. The company
went on to design and market several mod-
els of ultralight and kit-built aircraft, with
more than 4,000 kits delivered to date.
EAA extends its deepest sympathy to
Dave’s family, friends, and to the Quad
City Aircraft family.

6 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014

 Give the Gift of

Share The Spirit of Aviation this holiday season

with tickets to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015.

July 20-26 + AirVenture.org/tickets

Copyright © 2014 EAA

EAA Experimenter 7
LEONARD MILHOLLAND’S LEGAL EAGLE

Leonard Milholland’s
Legal Eagle
A popular plans-built ultralight
BY DAN GRUNLOH

8 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014 Photography courtesy of Dennis Scott

EAA Experimenter 9
LEONARD MILHOLLAND’S LEGAL EAGLE
A pair of Legal Eagle wings ready for cover.
The cockpit of Les Homan’s Legal Eagle XL reveals minimal instrumentation.
Leonard Milholland with his Double Eagle two-place.
10 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
LEONARD MILHOLLAND’S LEGAL EAGLE is a low-cost, plans-built
ultralight with a conventional configuration that is designed
to be powered with a ½ VW engine. With more than 2,500
sets of plans sold, hundreds of aircraft under construction,
and at least 100 airplanes completed since the design was
introduced 16 years ago, the Legal Eagle is on its way to
becoming the most popular plans-built ultralight.
Milholland, of Brookshire, Texas, accomplished several feats
with this airplane.
First, Leonard showed it was possible to build a satisfac-
tory three-axis, fixed-wing ultralight under the 254-pound
legal weight limit for ultralights, something that other
designers have found difficult. He produced a plans-built
design that drastically lowered the cost of an ultralight. With
good scrounging and ordinary building skills, a builder could
complete a Legal Eagle and have it ready to fly for $5,000,
including the engine and prop. The choice of a simple design
using long-established construction methods combined
with an undeniable cuteness has made the Legal Eagle a hit.
Finally, Leonard did it with a four-cycle engine! Many of us
had long believed that only a two-cycle engine provided the
needed weight-to-power ratio for a successful (and legal)
ultralight. Very close attention to weight savings in the air-
frame and the engine makes it possible with the Legal Eagle.
HISTORY AND ORIGINS
The ability to come up with a successful and popular plans-
built ultralight didn’t come out of nowhere. Leonard said
he was “infected” with aviation even before he saw his first
barnstormer at the age of 5 during the Depression. In an
EAA Timeless Voices interview, he admits to sneaking into
hangars as a boy to sit in airplanes. He was an avid model
airplane builder and flier, a hobby he continued into his
adult life. The Army Air Corps gave him intensive training
in airplane engine mechanics in 1943, and he became a crew
chief on BT-13s and B-24s.
In 1970 he and his wife took flight training and became
pilots, and he discovered EAA in 1972. In 1998, after own-
ing and building a number of airplanes, he became con-
cerned about his third-class medical and decided to build
an ultralight. The airplanes that seemed to have influenced
his design were a Corben Junior Ace that he built, which
he admired for its use of triangulation, and a Sorrell Guppy
powered by a Cushman scooter engine. When the Cushman
engine failed and he replaced it with a ½ VW engine built
from plans, the seeds were born for the Legal Eagle.
The Legal Eagle ultralight draws heavily from other de-
signs. Leonard would say he hasn’t done anything that hasn’t
been previously tested. The wing structure was inspired by
the well-proven Mini-Max ultralight designed by Wayne
Ison. The ribs are ¼-inch spruce with plywood gussets, and
the wooden wing spars are the built-up type with spruce
caps and a plywood web. The fuselage is mostly welded
5/8-inch 4130 steel tubing. The pop-riveted aluminum tube
Photography courtesy of Sam Buchanon and www.BetterHalfVW.com
and gusset tail weigh 4 pounds before covering. Because the
Guppy flew well with the ½ VW engine, it was an obvious
choice for the Legal Eagle. Leonard said he has been drawing
airplanes all his life and decided to make one as simple and
light as possible.

“MY LIFE CHANGED THE DAY THAT PICTURE CAME OUT”

In 1999 Leonard submitted a picture and a description of
his 244-pound empty weight ½ VW-powered Legal Eagle
ultralight to the “What Our Members Are Building” section
of EAA Sport Aviation magazine. As he tells the story now,
some 15 years later, “My life changed the day that picture
came out because the phone started ringing, and it hasn’t
stopped.” Everyone wanted plans. It could have been the
cute bicycle wheels, the overall look, the four-cycle engine,
or a combination of all these factors, but a lot of plans have
gone all around the world. Leonard simply put pencil and
square and triangles to standard office paper until all the A Legal Eagle built by Joe Engelman from Kansas at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2010.
parts had been described. Obviously it’s a little harder after
the airplane is built. He admits there is no money in selling
plans because of the support required, but the reward is the
people who are calling with questions. He still gets several
calls every day and enjoys talking about the airplane.
The Legal Eagle is designed for pilots up to 220 pounds.
A challenge to build a follow-up design for larger pilots
evolved into the Double Eagle, a two-place experimen-
tal version powered by a full 4-cylinder VW engine. The
original Legal Eagle ultralight used established construction
methods, but the Double Eagle was something new. Thanks
to good luck, an aeronautical engineer in need of work was
hired to do a complete structural analysis on the Double
Eagle for a reasonable fee.
Leonard’s next design, the Eagle XL (for extra large) is a
true enlarged single-seat Legal Eagle with a wider fuselage
and a longer wing intended for pilots up to 275 pounds. His
engineer was no longer available, so the XL wing was static A beautiful, jewel-like ½ VW engine built by machinist Joe Engelman.
loaded to simulate a 4g-load. The witnessed test deflected
the wing 5 inches with no permanent deformation.
The Eagle XL has a larger cockpit and a larger wing, so it
must have very minimal instruments and aluminum engine
cylinders to meet the ultralight weight limit. The prototype
XL weighed 246 pounds with no brakes. Leonard said he
flies without brakes and has no problem. Very light bicycle
brakes are possible. All the airplanes, including the two-
place Double Eagle, have the same NACA 4414 airfoil for
the wings. Construction of the Double is similar to the Legal
Eagle, except the tail is welded steel tubing instead of alumi-
num. More than 500 sets of plans for the Double have been
sold, with about 50 flying.

PLANS AND DVDS AVAILABLE

The Legal Eagle plans cost $50 and include about 45 pages of
details and dimensions hand drawn with a pencil, T-square,
and triangles. A construction text, materials list, and a few A typical page of drawings from Legal Eagle plans.

EAA Experimenter 11
LEONARD MILHOLLAND’S LEGAL EAGLE
Les Homan from California flying his Legal Eagle XL.
Scott Johnson of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, won the Reserve Grand Champion Lindy
in 2007 with his Legal Eagle, the Silver Slug.
A Legal Eagle welded tube fuselage in the Ultralight Workshop tent at AirVenture.
12 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
pages of black and white photos bring the total to around 60
pages. The Legal Eagle XL airframe adds 32 inches to the
wingspan and increases the wing area from 107 to 120 square
feet. The XL plans are $80 but include more pages with
57 numbered drawings with more details than the original
Legal Eagle plans, and a longer construction text. Leonard
also sells a set of four instructional DVDs for each aircraft
that cover various parts of the construction process. Some
pre-manufactured parts are available from other vendors for
the Legal Eagle, including metal fittings, wood parts, materi-
als kits, and even a pre-welded fuselage. The plan sheets are
printed on standard 8.5-by-11 copy paper to save on cost. Get
all the details and learn more at www.BetterHalfVW.com.
WHICH LEGAL EAGLE TO BUILD?
The XL features one-man wing removal for storage, whereas
the original Legal Eagle requires two people to remove the
wings. The decision about which airplane to build depends
on pilot weight and size and the importance of meeting the
legal empty weight of 254 pounds. The original Legal Eagle
will accommodate a 6-foot-tall pilot of 220 pounds and leave
some margin for instruments and accessories.
The XL is a larger airplane and will come out heavier
if similarly equipped. It is true that the FAA is not driv-
ing around with scales, looking for heavy ultralights and
that some plans builders don’t care that much about empty
weight. At every forum he gives, Leonard admonishes build-
ers to build for lightness. He does not approve or recom-
mend modifications that make it overweight. Large pilots
and those who care less about the legal weight limit are
probably going to be looking at the XL.
BETTER HALF VW ENGINE
Leonard’s first ½ VW engine was built by Dave Carr from
plans that go all the way back to 1975. The 4-cylinder VW
engine case and crankshaft are literally cut in half to make
a 2-cylinder engine. Cutting off the unneeded portion of the
case saves 4 pounds but requires building an engine mount
and adding an oil cooler, because the half case doesn’t hold
enough oil to cool the engine adequately. Also, there is an
air movement problem because both remaining cylinders
move inward at the same time. A lot of air must move in and
out rapidly without taking oil spray with it. A one-way reed
valve or related device must be incorporated. A full case,
however, provides an excellent engine mount for the Legal
Eagle, and with half a crankshaft inside, it holds plenty of oil
and reduces the air movement problem. The weight saved
by cutting the case was replaced by the extra parts needed.
Leonard’s next engine would be a full-case ½ VW because it
would save money and be simple to build.
Leaving the case intact makes it difficult to mount a mag-
neto, a favored ignition solution, but magnetos are expen-
sive and heavy, and other systems have a hotter spark. The
Better Half uses a VW distributor with coil and condenser
Photography courtesy of Dan Grunloh
in a dead-loss battery system for a fraction of the cost of a
magneto. The battery will supply a whole weekend of flying
but must then be put on a charger. When walking through a
hangar full of Legal Eagles, you have to watch out for all the
extension cords.
Engine weight is 81 to 85 pounds, depending on how
diligent you are about removing weight. Leonard originally
flew with a single Zenith carburetor but switched to a pair of
28-millimeter Mikuni carbs. They are easy to mount, easy to
adjust, and eliminate the need for carburetor heat. Leonard
said when he switched to the pair of Mikuni carbs, it was
like a different engine. The engine produces 30 hp at 3400
rpm with a 54-by-24 prop, and the fuel consumption is 2
gallons per hour or less. There are examples in service with
nearly 1,000 hours on the engine. Only wood props can be
used, as composite props cannot withstand the power pulses
of the ½ VW. Leonard describes his full-case ½ VW en- Les Homan brought his Legal Eagle XL to AirVenture 2014 from California and
gine in a set of plans comprised of 18 pages of drawings and won the top award for ultralights.
text. Engine plans are included with the Legal Eagle plans
but are also available separately for $20. Two videos on the
construction of the heads and on final engine assembly are
available. Order information is at www.BetterHalfVW.com.

REGULAR ENGINE MAINTENANCE IS CRITICAL

Half VW engines are very dependable and give excellent ser-
vice, but regular maintenance is critical. As Leonard said, “You
can’t expect to bolt the engine on and forget about it.” Every
25 hours the oil should be changed, valve covers removed, and
the valve adjustment checked. Monitoring the valves will give
advance warning of any problems. The propeller bolt torque
should be checked every 25 hours. The cutting, machining, and
balancing of the crankshaft require a well-equipped machine
shop, and there are multiple sources for those services. Leon-
ard’s engine puts out 30 hp, but there are custom builders that
make more powerful engines by using larger cylinders. Joe Spencer’s PuttPutt showing the unique, one-pound seat made of woven
The most popular source of ½ VW engines is Scott Casler metal strips.
of Hummel Engineering at www.HummelEngines.com in
Coolidge, Arizona. Scott builds full-case and cut-case ½ VW
engines using aluminum billet cylinders. His engines range
from 28 to 45 hp, and he offers electric starters, single or
dual ignition, and battery systems. A lot of Legal Eagles are
flying with Casler engines.

CELEBRATING LEONARD’S 90TH BIRTHDAY AT AIRVENTURE 2014

Leonard celebrated his 90th birthday during EAA AirVen-
ture Oshkosh 2014 with about 70 friends and supporters at
a local Oshkosh restaurant. The master of ceremonies was
his son-in-law, Graeme Gibson, who has been involved with
Leonard’s projects since the first plans and instructions were
typed and printed. He may have surprised a few when he
announced that in addition to being an airplane designer,
Leonard has a potential career as a stand-up comedian.
When given the microphone, this gentleman, whose en-
ergy makes other men 20 years younger feel old and tired, Leonard Milholland at a Legal Eagle forum during AirVenture 2014.

EAA Experimenter 13
LEONARD MILHOLLAND’S LEGAL EAGLE
LEGAL EAGLE XL SPECIFICATIONS
Empty weight: 246 pounds
Wingspan: 315 inches (26 feet 3 inches)
Wing chord: 55 inches
Wing area: 120.3 square feet
Gross weight: 575 pounds
Fuselage length: 193 inches (16 feet 1 inch)
Height: 75 inches (6 feet 3 inches)
Fuel capacity: 5 gallons
Propeller: Wood, 54-by-22
Engine: 30 hp Better Half VW
Stall speed: 27 mph
Takeoff distance: 250 feet
proceeded to deliver a string of standard jokes with a perfect
sense of timing. He also talked about his age, saying he had
promised his wife he would live to be at least 100. A check of
his calculated life expectancy at this time came out to 104,
so when they reach that point they will make new plans.
It was a treat to be in the same room and feel the affection
expressed by family, friends, and customers.
A successful plans-built airplane must have builder sup-
port, and that’s where an organized builder community can
help. The Eagler’s Nest at www.EaglersNest.com/forum/
is an online community of builders and owners with 456
Leonard cutting his 90th birthday cake during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2014.
14 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
members and more than 3,000 posts covering more than 500
topics. The running slide show of completed Legal Eagle
projects may make you want to build one. There is also a Ya-
hoo discussion group for ½ VW engines. Sam Buchanan has
a wonderful build site with detailed photos and text about
every aspect of his Legal Eagle XL project. The photos and
explanations add a lot to what is in the plans. Don’t miss the
link to his flying videos. Sam previously built a Van’s RV-6.
Les Homan brought his Legal Eagle XL to AirVenture
2014 all the way from California and won the top ultralight
award given by the judges in the Fun Fly Zone, as the Ul-
tralight/Lightplane area is now called. He has a lot of great
videos of Legal Eagle flying at www.YouTube.com/user/
homanles/videos and also some snippets from Leonard’s fo-
rums at AirVenture. Les flew a Super Starduster biplane for
three years prior to the Legal Eagle.
Leonard and his builders have been bringing their air-
planes to EAA AirVenture, and he has been giving forums in
the Ultralight/Lightplane area for nearly 15 years. For some
reason, there are few news and magazine articles about his
airplanes. Leonard said the airplane doesn’t get the recogni-
tion it deserves. Perhaps writers dismiss it as old-fashioned
and instead focus on the “jazzier” airplanes. Check out the
Legal Eagles in the Ultralight/Lightplane area next time you
come to AirVenture, and watch for news of Leonard’s next
airplane, an enclosed cabin model with folding wings. Con-
tact Leonard at Leonard@lemilholland.com.
Dan Grunloh has logged 1,200 hours in trikes, and he won the 2002 and
2004 U.S. National Microlight Championships in a trike.
Photography courtesy of Dan Grunloh
 8
B ER ys.
M ida
DECEr the hol
E
OR time f
o
BEF der in nly.)
DER ur o rders
r o
OReceive yo (U.S. o
to r

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EAA Experimenter 17
KEEPING UP A FAMILY TRADITION

Keeping Up a
Family Tradition
Randy Weselmann and his Piel Beryl
BY BUDD DAVISSON

16 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014 Photography by Tyson V. Rininger

The wing and tail planforms of the Beryl are very recognizable as
being shared with the Piel Emeraude and the certified Cap 10. 

EAA Experimenter 17
KEEPING UP A FAMILY TRADITION
IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that EAA is more than 60 years old and
that we’re seeing second- and third-generation homebuilders
following in the footsteps of parents who built airplanes. To
the average person on the street, building an airplane sounds
preposterous, but to someone who grew up with an airplane
in his family’s garage, it sounds perfectly normal. Doesn’t
everyone have an airplane in his garage?
The cowling is a Randy Weselmann original, since the plans didn’t address the
cowling in detail. 
The Beryl was Claude Piel’s aerobatic version of his better known, side-by-side design, the Emeraude.
18 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
Randy Weselmann of Bainbridge, Indiana, would say,
“Yeah, we had an airplane in the garage, so why not build
one myself?”
Randy’s dad was an aeronautical engineer who worked for
General Electric and Boeing, among others. However, in the
early 1960s he decided to set up his own airplane factory and
bought the plans for a Thorp T-18. Being small, Randy was the
ofcial crawl-inside-the-fuselage-bucking-bar holder.
He said, “I don’t know where the urge to work with my
hands came from, but certainly watching and then help-
ing my father take flat sheets of metal and turn them into
an airplane had a lot to do with it. It must be in my DNA
because the urge bit me early. I started on my A&P license
while still in high school and eventually went to work with
United Airlines in their sheet metal and machine shops. I
wanted to build an airplane, but I wasn’t making enough
money to go the normal homebuilt route. So I built a Mitch-
ell B-10 flying wing ultralight.”
It would be easy for another homebuilder to look down
on the concept of building an ultralight, but Randy has the
last laugh.
“I have put over 400 hours on it and have gone through
three engines. I still have it but haven’t flown it for a while
because of the Beryl.”
The Piel Beryl caught his eye because he liked “the Spitfire
look” that the wing had. Also, the advertisements for it said
 
Photography by Tyson V. Rininger
The Lycoming 0-320E2D was a totally disassembled basket case that Randy found on Barnstormers.com. In the course of rebuilding the engine, Randy added a Silver
Hawk fuel-injection unit and a Christen inverted oil system. 

it was designed for aerobatics, and that really appealed to

Randy. He said, “The wing is essentially the same as the two-
place, side-by-side Emeraude that Claude Piel had designed
earlier, except that it is a bit shorter and slightly beefed up.
The fuselage, however, is totally diferent in every way.”
What he’s referring to is that, besides featuring tandem
seating, the wood fuselage of the Emeraude was replaced
by a conventional steel tubing truss unit in the Beryl like so
many other aerobatic airplanes.
Randy said, “Claude Piel was a professional engineer
and didn’t give too much thought to the limited aircraft
building experience the builders of the airplane would
have. The Emeraude was designed in the early 1950s, the
Beryl in the ’60s, so the homebuilding movement was still
quite young. Claude approached the airplane as he would
any other professional airplane design, so some parts of it
are—if not difficult for an amateur to do—at the very least The aileron balance weights hang out into the wind.
challenging and/or time consuming.
“The fuselage, for instance, is not a conventional tubing a Warren truss, so most side pieces are running at angles in
box like a Pitts or Skybolt where you build the sides flat and the shape of warped W’s, and because the wing runs through
then stand them up to put the crosstubes in. The firewall sta- the bottom of the fuselage, rather than attaching on either
tion is square, but from there back, the fuselage is trapezoi- side, there is a big discontinuity in that area. Further com-
dal and sweeps up. So you build the top of the fuselage first, plicating things is that the bottom truss is highly unusual
then construct a three-dimensional jig that holds the bottom and irregular plus the longerons aren’t one piece. They are
two longerons in the right place and start putting in the side multiple pieces of different sizes getting smaller as they go
tubing. The side trusses have few 90-degree crosspieces. It’s back where the strength isn’t needed.

EAA Experimenter 19
KEEPING UP A FAMILY TRADITION
The fuselage of the Beryl is much more complicated than most tubing structures of the type because it isn’t square, so the sides can’t be laid out and then stood up. Plus,
the longerons are made of numerous sizes. 
Randy says wheelpants may be installed someday, but he’s having too much fun
flying to put them on.  siderations, and that applied especially to the wing. Typical
“The truth is that I didn’t get serious about the fuselage
until I was about 15 years into the project. I started out
building small pieces of both steel and wood because they
looked so good hanging on the wall; and I was polishing my
skills as I went. I learned to weld in A&P school but hadn’t
welded in years, so I practiced on the small pieces until I
had the time, money, and space to attack the fuselage.”
20 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
The project was further complicated because Randy said
the plans only addressed about 75 percent of the airplane.
A lot of things such as forming sheet metal and cosmetic
details were left to the builder’s imagination and creativ-
ity. Plus, there was no building manual, so there, too, the
builder had to think far ahead while figuring out how to jig
and build the different components.
He said, “One thing about the plans is that they were
very professionally drawn. But there were a lot of them,
and you had to do some head-scratching to figure out how
things related to one another. Plus they were written in
French with rough English translations. Also, they were all
metric, which was actually no problem. In some ways, I like
working with metric better. For the most part, I made no
effort to convert measurements. I just used metric and had
the right measuring equipment.”
Randy constructed the big parts last due to space con-
of wood construction, the parts count of the wing is ex-
tremely high, and to make matters worse, most of the parts
are only repeated twice because of the shape of the wing.
Randy explained, “You didn’t get a rib template; the shape
of the wing, with every rib being different, made it imprac-
tical for Claude to do templates. So he gave you the X/Y
coordinates and you plotted the airfoil yourself, which is no
problem and is probably more accurate than working with
Photography by Tyson V. Rininger
something like a paper template. But like everything else, it sional jig. I had to be careful; because even though the spar
takes time. Especially since you had to calculate the airfoil was quite strong, being that long, it had a little flex and you
and draw it full size for every rib station. had to be careful to keep it true. So it was jigged every-
“The ribs are built-up trusses, and only those between where that I could attach the jig to it.”
the spars in the center section are the same. So after you The original CP.30 Emeraude wing, on which the Beryl
calculated the airfoil for each station, you had to build is based, continued to evolve until the Emeraude melded
another rib jig that would only produce two ribs. Then you into the certified, French CAP 10 aerobatic trainer. As
trashed that jig and made another one. I really like variety, originally designed for the Beryl, the wing was plywood
but it gets tiresome after a while. However, it worked well
for my situation at the time. I didn’t have the time or money
to really dive into the project, so every so often I’d make up
a pair of ribs, then work on something else.”
One of the major space hogs in the project was the wing
because it is one piece. Also, it is complex, and because it’s
a cantilever wing, everything on the spar has to be perfect.
This includes laminated spar caps that have to be jigged to
match the airfoil change as it goes out the wing. To further
complicate the life of a builder who is short on space, the
spar (hence the wing) is more than 25 feet long.
Randy said building the worktable was a project in
itself, not only because it was so big but also because it had
to have a perfectly flat, true surface. “I built the spar lying
flat as if it were a gigantic rib with a similar type of jig,” he
said. “This let me get all the angles exact. However, when I
started actually building the wing, because of the dihedral,
I was back to constructing another very stout three-dimen- The canopy was the biggest, most difficult single part of the airplane to build.

Randy’s panel reflects the trend toward glass cockpits in almost any kind of airplane. And the iPad is becoming the most popular navigation add-on.

EAA Experimenter 21
KEEPING UP A FAMILY TRADITION
AIRCRAFT SPECIFICATIONS
Top speed (VNE): 183 knots
Cruise speed: 120 knots at 2,300 rpm
Full throttle speed: 149 knots at 2,650 rpm
Landing speed: 60 knots
Takeoff roll: 1,000 feet
Rate of climb at gross: 800 fpm at 95 knots
Range at 65% estimated: 3.5 hours
Range at 50% estimated: 4 hours
Empty weight: 1,174 pounds
Gross weight: 1,700 pounds
Useful load: 526 pounds
Fuel capacity: 26 gallons
Wingspan: 26 feet, 6 inches
Wing area: 117 square feet
Length: 22 feet, 9 inches
Cabin width: 24 inches
Cabin length: 84 inches, rudder pedals to rear seat
Engine: Lycoming O-320-E2D
Prop: Sterba 70-by-68, wood
sheeted only forward of the main spar. This formed a
torque box that carried all of the various loads the wing
would experience. Behind that, it was fabric covered. When
Randy did his wing, he went one step further and sheeted
the entire wing, like the CAP 10. In fact, he copied a num-
ber of changes that were made in the CAP 10 wing.
He said, “I wanted the wing to be not only stiff but also
smooth as well. So I continued 1/16-inch birch ply from
the spar to the trailing edge. When I finished it, I used boat
cloth over the ply, which is really thin fiberglass with resin.
With very little filling and some sanding, you can get a nice,
smooth surface.
“I also changed the wing incidence from four degrees
to two degrees and took the dihedral from five degrees
to three degrees and used electric actuators for the trim
and flaps.”
The tail is also wood and the structure mimics that of
the wing but much smaller. Its trailing edge is laminated
like a tip bow to provide the requisite curve. The one-piece
skins are very gentle compound curves, which Randy ac-
complished by forming them in place when wet. As with
the CAP 10, he also balanced the elevators and inset the
elevator trim in the left elevator.
The basic structure had a few complexities, which
Randy worked out with no problem, but as is often the case
with airplanes, some of the lesser assemblies caused as
much or more headaches. In this case, it was the canopy.
22 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
Being a tandem airplane, the canopy is a visual focal
point of the design and one of the areas that took a lot
of work to get right. The tubing structure itself was
complicated enough, but the Plexiglas covering was a story
unto itself.
Randy said, “I hadn’t anticipated how tough doing the
canopy and windshield was going to be. I would have actu-
ally preferred to buy the canopy, but by the time I got that
far, I was looking at each new part as a challenge to see if
I could do it. And the Plexi work definitely fell into that
category. I didn’t want to go with some sort of one-piece,
flat-wrap canopy. It would be too angular and would con-
flict visually with the rest of the airplane’s lines. I wanted
something with just the right shape, and the only way I was
going to do that was to do it myself.
“The first thing I did was study a section in [Ladislao]
Pazmany’s building book that addressed forming Plexiglas.
Then I made a big wooden form and covered it with flan-
nel. To heat the plastic, I built an oven, and the Plexi sheet
was suspended from a telescoping, overhead rail that could
be extended. I could bring the whole sheet up to tempera-
ture, then roll it out. I had five other guys over, each with
gloves and welding vise grips. We grabbed the hot sheet
and stretched it down over the mold.
“I’d be lying if I said it worked the first time. I ruined a
few sheets of Plexi [while] learning, but it was something I
wanted to try to do. The entire process covered a couple of
years, but I’m glad I went that route. I’m proud of having
done it.”
We would be remiss if we didn’t delve deeper into
Randy’s do-it-yourself oven; a lot of builders would benefit
from his experience. He explained, “The oven is made from
galvanized steel sheet and metal 2-by-4’s, with fiberglass
insulation. The heaters are eight electric resistance ele-
ments with switches on the outside for each element. Once
I got it hot, I shut two or four of them off. There is a fan to
circulate the air, also. I had a thermocouple in the center
of the bottom edge of the sheet, and when the temp hit 320
degrees, we got it on the mold as quickly as possible. When
the Plexiglas gets too hot, it bubbles and is ruined.
“The pieces of Plexiglas were different sizes, depending
on which part of the canopy was being done; the canopies
are 1/8 inch and the windshield is 3/16 inch. The back can-
opy was the largest but was quite a bit smaller than 4-by-8.
“I tried to get the room as warm as possible because, at
the most, you might have a couple of minutes to work with
the hot Plexiglas. When the first windshield worked out, it
was a beautiful thing!”
When it came time to cover the airplane, Randy went
with Ceconite with nitrate, then butyrate with Randothane
over it.
“Painting was difficult,” he said. “I had to do some parts
twice because the yellow just didn’t cover. Next time, if
there is a next time, I’ll know that, if I’m painting yellow
or light colors, to put down a coat of white first. But then, on it for long stretches. The lowest point of the project
that’s what the building process is all about: learning stuff was toward the end. The wing fuel tanks on the plans were
you didn’t know before.” welded aluminum with two center ribs that were spot-
The engine was a Barnstormers.com find: an O-320 that welded. I didn’t know where to get that done; so I made a
was completely disassembled. He sent the case, cylinders, test with welding over a rivet head and it worked great. So
rods and crank out for inspection and reconditioning and I riveted in the ribs and welded up the rest of the tanks—
assembled it himself with a new cam, lifters, oil pump, and they were looking great. Then I went to weld over the
pistons. Since the Beryl was to be his aerobatic mount, he rivet heads on the center ribs, and I hadn’t considered that
added Silver Hawk fuel injection and a Christen inverted with everything else welded up, the heat on the skin in the
oil system. A T-18 spinner and nose bowl finished off the middle buckled and broke the rivets. Three months work
nose, and the prop is a Sterba 70-by-68. ruined! I briefly wished I’d never heard of a Piel Beryl, but
He said, “With that combination, it gets off the ground it soon passed. I borrowed my brother’s RV-4 plans and riv-
quickly and climbs out at around 800 fpm at 100 knots. eted and sealed the tanks the way the RV guys do, and they
It’ll cruise at 120 knots at 2,300 rpm and 7 gph, which is turned out better than welded ones would have.”
throttled well back. Now that the airplane is finished and he has more
“On landing, I shoot for around 80 to 85 knots on final than 300 hours logged in it, he said, “This was the perfect
and 75 knots over the threshold. It is sensitive to having too airplane for me in so many ways. I absolutely love build-
much speed and will float like crazy. If that happens, I usu- ing things, and with this airplane, I got to work with every
ally just wheel it on. It is super stable on the runway, about conceivable type of material: wood, steel, fabric, fiberglass,
like a Decathlon or Citabria, which is to say it’s nice!” Plexi, and aluminum. More than that, it flies exactly the
In total, the project took 24 years, but Randy said, “I way I hoped it would, so this has been a win-win project
knew it was a big project when I started, but I never con- from the very beginning.”
sidered not finishing it, even when I wasn’t able to work Another that’s another happy homebuilder: Life is good!

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EAA Experimenter 23
KLAUS SAVIER’S DETERMINATOR
Klaus Savier’s Determinator
He makes speed mods look EZ
BY LYNNE WAINFAN, PH.D., EAA LIFETIME 50408
KLAUS SAVIER CALLS HIS Long-EZ the Determinator. The air-
plane’s name seems to be a “quadruple entendre”: Klaus is
determined to terminate inefciency, and he wanted to use the
plane to determine what can be achieved in efciency and per-
formance. Or, the name could reference Klaus’ German accent;
he sounds a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie character
the Terminator would, if he had ever been the poster boy for
experimental aviation.
Klaus Savier and his Determinator, a much-modified Long-EZ.
Klaus, the stocky, serious, self-taught engineer, said, “I’ve
made hundreds of improvements, mostly aimed at going faster.”
He started experimenting in 1983 with his VariEze. (He calls
that the Delaminator.) Thirty-one years later, he still continues
to improve his airplanes. Some of the VariEze improvements
were in the propulsion system—more sophisticated intake tun-
ing and a better fuel-injection system. Aerodynamic modifica-
tions were more numerous: changes to the canard elevator slot;
upswept canard tips; and a new canard airfoil, among others.
24 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
The result of all those improvements? Klaus increased the
VariEze’s speed from 183 to an amazing 260 mph. His experi-
mentation made him go—can you believe this—42 percent
faster! Also, if he flies at 15 percent power, the VariEze can get
100 mpg.
Klaus considered buying a partially completed Long-EZ
back in 1985, but he wasn’t very optimistic about its perfor-
mance over his modified VariEze. “At first glance, there was no
chance that the Long-EZ could do any better,” Klaus explained.
“It could only burn more fuel.” He ended up buying the Long-
EZ at 10 cents on the dollar but continued to work on the
VariEze for several more years. Eventually Klaus had so many
parts left over from his VariEze modifications that he figured he
should just incorporate them onto his Long-EZ project.
So what did Klaus do to his airplanes to make them go
faster? Lots and lots of little things.
Before we get into specifics, some words of caution. “Do
not try this at home,” he warned. “Changing little things on an
airplane, especially a canard, can have big efects, mostly nega-
tive.” EAA Sport Aviation (November 2009) reported that bugs,
paint stripes, or even rain near the leading edge of a canard can
increase minimum flying speed and cause pitch changes.
Klaus’ cautious approach is how he has developed an
impressively methodical and exceptionally thorough process
to make his planes go faster. For each improvement he contem-
plates, he goes through four phases:
1. Understand the situation.
2. Design a fix.
3. Test the fix.
4. Repeat until satisfied. (This would be “never satisfied”
for Klaus.)
The improvements Klaus has made fall into three catego-
ries. The first is with the propulsion system: intake, ignition,
exhaust, propeller, and fuel subsystems. The goal here is to
improve efciency and run the engine at lower rpm.
Photography by Lynne Wainfan
 The second category includes aerodynamic improvements:
reducing drag and improving flying qualities.
Then there is the eternal desire to reduce weight at every
feasible opportunity.
Let’s take a look at some of Klaus’ modifications.
PROPULSION SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS
Klaus’ plans to improve his Long-EZ were thwarted a bit in
the beginning when his engine wouldn’t run right. “It acted
like a fuel-injection issue, like excess fuel would get injected
and cause a rich miss,” he said. “It was hard to find and hard
to fix. I struggled with it for almost two years.”
The methodical Klaus admitted that he had been looking
in the wrong place—fuel injection. Instead, it turned out to
be poor intake design. He had finally accomplished step one
of his four-step process: He had understood the situation.
Now that Klaus found the general source of the problem, he
had to return to step one: Find out what exactly was happening
inside the intake. Klaus outfitted the Long-EZ’s intake with a
pressure sensor for a portable oscilloscope and went flying.
But Klaus had to get good measurements. He advises that
magnetos make it very difficult to understand what’s going
on with other parts of the engine. Klaus said, “Their weak
and short-duration spark delivered at greatly fluctuating de-
grees causes so much scatter in exhaust and intake pressure
waves as well as Lambda (mixture) values that they mask
other problems.”
A precisely timed, powerful electronic ignition removes
a lot of variables in the pressure data and shows other issues
such as fuel atomization more clearly.
Klaus is a recognized expert and advocate of electronic
ignition for light airplanes. He is appalled that after three
decades of automotive use, aircraft engines don’t use elec-
tronic ignition as standard equipment. In addition to helping
with clear measurements of what’s going on in the engine,
“electronic ignition provides an immediate 10 percent reduc-
tion in fuel consumption with 5 to 10 percent increase in
power,” he said. He uses Plasma III systems that are trig-
gered directly at the crankshaft, reporting that “these sys-
tems have around 0.5 degree of timing accuracy and can be
varied by 1/10 of a degree. Their spark energy is about three
times that of any mag.”
Klaus applied another automobile technology to improve
his Long-EZ engine—a tuned intake. How do they work?
Ambient air gathers speed as it rushes into the intake pipe
during the intake stroke. At the end of the intake cycle when
the inlet valve is closed, the high-velocity air hits the valve
and compresses. This high-pressure air can’t go into the en-
gine, so it bounces back through the intake pipe. Then it hits
the plenum on the other side and bounces back toward the
engine. This pressure wave travels back and forth until the
valve opens again. Figure 2 shows one of Klaus’ oscilloscope
readings for this pressure wave. Note that the big dip is the
piston sucking.
Photography courtesy of Light Speed Engineering
Figure 2: An example of an oscilliscope reading showing the effect of Klaus’
tuned intake.
If the high-pressure wave happens to hit the valve at the exact mo-
ment that the valve is opening, then it acts like a supercharger!
In order to accomplish this feat, we need to tune the frequency
of the pressure wave so that it hits the valve as it is opening. In
cars, this frequency is afected by engine speed and manifold
length. You pick an engine speed where you want the efect to
peak, and then change the manifold length appropriately. A longer
intake manifold gives the best tuning performance at low speeds; a
shorter intake manifold gives the best efect at higher rpm.
Tuned intakes have been on cars and motorcycles for a long
time, but they are relatively recent additions to light aircraft
engines. Aircraft engine intakes are somewhat easier to tune than
cars or motorcycles because their rpm range is smaller. On the
other hand, the tuned intake must fit inside an aircraft cowling
and works best over a limited altitude. The main variables that are
considered in tuning an aircraft engine intake are altitude plus the
length and the diameter of the intake tube.
Because car and motorcycle intakes do not have to be efcient
at widely varying altitudes, the traditional way of designing a
tuned system is to use a dynamometer—a workbench instrument
that measures an engine’s torque. Klaus explained, “When done
on a dyno, you have to make diferent intake manifolds, which is
a huge pain to do. But [air] density changes the resonance. So you
can use the airplane as a dyno and fly to diferent densities and
watch the resonances change.” This is the best method to design a
tuned intake because doing it on a dyno would take years building
diferent tubes for diferent altitudes; and altitude is almost impos-
sible to simulate on a dyno.
Klaus reported that understanding, fixing, and testing his
tuned intake took two years.
Once the intake was tuned, Klaus turned next to the exhaust on
the Determinator. Tuned exhausts have been used on a variety of
engines: automobile, motorcycle, aircraft, and even model aircraft.
An untuned exhaust sometimes has the problem that the exhaust
gas from one cylinder can travel out and then up the exhaust mani-
fold to a second cylinder’s exhaust. When that second cylinder’s
exhaust valves open, its exhaust gas is met with high pressure
EAA Experimenter 25
KLAUS SAVIER’S DETERMINATOR
from the original cylinder’s exhaust. This means that the second
cylinder’s exhaust gas doesn’t completely leave the cylinder. A
tuned exhaust, on the other hand, reduces the exhaust pressure
right before the port closes, using resonances like those occurring
in the intake system. This lets spent gas out of the cylinder and
fresh mixture into it, improving engine efciency.
“I talked to all sorts of people who were knowledgeable about
exhaust systems,” Klaus said. “One let me use his shop. I spent six
weekends and $2,000 worth of material. After all these modifica-
tions, the best I could do was 10 pounds more weight and 6 knots
less speed. This was one of my bigger mistakes.” Klaus urges cau-
tion when talking to experts, as it’s easy to get bad advice. Because
of that experience and because there is so little room for a longer
exhaust on a pusher airplane, the Long-EZ’s exhaust is still on his
list of future improvements.
Next, Klaus decided on a timed-sequential, fuel-injection
system. Traditional injectors fire all or two injectors as a group,
regardless of whether the cylinder is ready or not. A timed-se-
quential system opens the injector during a specified period in the
intake cycle. Because of cowling constraints, Klaus had to buy a
smaller injector so he could put it in a better location.
A diferent kind of problem came when Klaus put a header
tank behind the cockpit to replace the traditional external sump
blisters. He installed a transfer pump to fill the header from the
left main tank. A standpipe prevents accidental overfilling of
the header tank. In flight, when the air hit the common vent,
the dynamic pressure actually pushed fuel into the header tank,
keeping it full. The solution? Reduce the area of the vent opening.
Klaus made a new vent by wrapping carbon around the cap of a
felt marker. Figure 3 shows Klaus’ header tank—with visual fuel
gauge—and carbon vent tube.
Figure 3: The header tank with a visual gauge.
26 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
What about the propeller—was there anything to be gained
from modifications there? Klaus, through his company Light
Speed Engineering, has designed, built, and tested more than
50 propellers for diferent aircraft. He knows how to optimize
their shape.
“It’s really hard to get speed out of a propeller,” he said. “It’s
tough to increase the propeller efciency of a good propeller.
All you can do is increase the maximum rpm where the engine
makes more hp.” Propeller modifications let you set your optimal
performance at lower rpm, saving wear and tear on the engine
and reducing fuel costs. But again, he has made discoveries that go
against the conventional wisdom. For the Determinator, he uses a
carbon, fixed-pitch propeller that he designed and hand carved to
an amazing 100-plus inches of pitch. It turns at 2,600 rpm.
Making real propeller improvements aerodynamically is also
structurally challenging. Klaus cautions that metal props don’t
work on pusher airplanes. “The blades get excited by the wake of
the wing and cowling, and the aluminum, with its characteristi-
cally poor fatigue life, will fail sooner or later,” he warned. “All of
the wood and most of the composite props are fairly thick in order
to have adequate structure. Aerodynamic improvements come
mainly from using a much thinner airfoil. But these thin blades are
difcult to shape and require a vacuum-bagged laminate of very
high strength. Thin airfoils are also very sensitive to angle of at-
tack. This means that if the pitch distribution does not correspond
to the inflow angles, the blade will stall.” Klaus said that a racing
propeller is also on his list of future changes.
Klaus has an unusual take on prop mounting. “In the 1930s,
we stopped using wood propellers due to the increase in horse-
power and the better performance of metal props,” he said. “We
went from eight [mounting] bolts used for wood props to six bolts,
which are plenty for a metal hub.” Wood is less stif than metal,
so the bolts see more bending load. On the Long-EZ project, he
actually broke bolts at two diferent occasions before having a set
of custom bolts made. “Very expensive,” he said. For his 250-hp
engine, he hopes that the industry standard for wood props lowers
the bolt ending load, returning to eight bolts instead of six, and a
crush plate that is splined to the shaft.
AERODYNAMIC IMPROVEMENTS
Klaus has made dozens of changes to the way air flows over his
airplane. Recall that the first of our four-step process is to under-
stand the situation. How does Klaus understand the air?
Readers of last month’s Experimenter will recall from my ar-
ticle that we aeronautical engineers are obsessive about visualizing
airflow. We look for it in smoke trails, cofee cream, Saturn’s swirls,
and movie stars’ cigarette smoke. Klaus is widely recognized as the
world’s flow visualization guru. He uses whatever method he can
find, but the main techniques are oil flow and impingement.
In the oil flow method, special dark-colored oil is put on the
airplane before flight. After landing, the oil tracks show where the
air was—or was not. Klaus has a finely tuned mixture for his oil:
He starts with carbon black, the fine black powder that is added
to paint base to make it black. Carbon black is available on the
Photography by Lynne Wainfan
Internet and in paint shops. To this, he adds motor oil which is
viscous—a handy trait that helps it not fall of the airplane. Then
Klaus reduces this mixture with diesel fuel or kerosene, but this
combination has too much surface tension. To counteract that
problem, he adds a lot of dish soap…One begins to understand ex-
actly how obsessive engineers are about visualizing airflow. (I have
found that dish soap makes carbon-black cleanup a breeze.)
Klaus sometimes uses tufts as well. Tufts are small pieces of
string that are attached by tape to a surface. In flight, the tufts line
up with the air that flows past them. Tufts that stay lined up with
the direction of flight represent an aerodynamicist’s dream. If they
aim elsewhere or bounce around, they show that there is opportu-
nity for airflow improvement. Figure 4 is a picture of Klaus’ tufts
(while the plane is on the ground) that he used to fine-tune the
canard tip shape.
Figure 4: Tufting testing on the canard tip.
There are several reasons that oil flow visualization is more
useful than tufts. First, the tufts sometimes fly up above the
boundary layer into free-stream air. Second, the tufts can trip
the flow from laminar to turbulent, which could afect the air-
plane’s flying qualities and mess up your measurements. Third,
tufts only show the air motion when the aircraft is in flight,
unlike the oil which stays in place after landing. Finally, tufts
are only helpful if you can actually see them during flight. In-
stalling cameras to see the tuft movement in flight is often not
feasible. Figure 5 shows the same shaped wing on the ground
after a flight with the oil visualization method.
Figure 5: Using oil visualization to determine airflow.
Photography courtesy of Light Speed Engineering
The other method that Klaus uses for flow visualization is
impingement. Things in the air can strike the flight surfaces
and leave their mark. Most aerodynamicists know about the
bug method—if bugs hit the airplane, most of them will slide
right of. The ones that hit the plane perpendicularly—at the
stagnation point—tend to stick. This bug splat method of flow
visualization approach is not limited to wings. Figure 6 shows
a duct where the air is supposed to flow smoothly from left to
right. The bug splats tell the story: The air is hitting the duct
perpendicularly and aerodynamic improvements can be made.
Figure 6: The bugs inside the cooling duct show that the airflow into the duct isn’t smooth.
An unexpected impingement opportunity came when Klaus
and his co-pilot Jenny Tackabury flew through smoke from a
California wildfire. The particles in the smoke rubbed on the
freshly waxed airplane. Where there was laminar flow on the
forward part of the flight surfaces, the particles slid of cleanly. But
the turbulent boundary layer embedded dust particles into the
wax. This left the laminar region polished and made the turbulent
area dull. As you may remember from my article on aerodynamic
devices last month, this transition from laminar to turbulent flow
is important to locate.
So Klaus’ flow visualization methods let him accomplish step
one of the process: Understand the situation. From here, Klaus
identified several ways that the air was not flowing efciently.
The following shows some of his improvements which have been
designed and tested.
Klaus worked on the cowling first, lowering its profile in order
to reduce drag (“it pushes less air out of the way”), and to blank
less of the pusher prop. Figure 6a shows Klaus’ sleek cowling.
Figure 6a: The Determinator’s sleek cowling.
EAA Experimenter 27
KLAUS SAVIER’S DETERMINATOR

He also made several changes to the Long-EZ’s canard.

He modified the canard’s airfoil, sharpening the leading-
edge radius from the standard Roncz airfoil. Klaus decided
on the Dornier-style upswept tapered tips instead of the
typical Hoerner tip he has on his VariEze, and he modi-
fied the elevator’s deployment angle. The stock configura-
tion deploys to 25 degrees; Klaus found that after some slot
changes, flow stays attached to the elevator all the way to a
surprising 45 degrees. “Obviously, making any changes on
your airfoils can easily be disastrous,” Klaus cautioned. “In-
creasing the lift capability of the canard—or your tail—can
drive the main wing into a stall, and we all know how that
plays out!”
He also changed the direction of the gap between the
wing and the ailerons. The plans call for the gap to be lined
up perpendicular to the wing’s swept trailing edge. Instead,
Klaus lined this gap up with the direction of flight. This
reduced the small drag caused by the edge of the elevator
being angled into the wind. He also added a foam insert to
the gap to further reduce drag. These changes can be seen in
Figure 7.

Figure 8: Klaus uses this special blue “flash breaker” tape because it doesn’t
leave a residue and doesn’t come off in flight.

Swept-wing aircraft typically experience flow from the wing

Figure 7: Aerodynamic improvements to the ailerons.
Note also the accidental flow visualization—some oil re-
mained in the hinges and flowed out during flight. The lines
that don’t line up with the direction of flight show that there
is some spanwise flow. More on that later.
To seal other gaps, Klaus uses a special blue flash breaker
tape, as seen in Figure 8. What’s so special about this tape?
First, it doesn’t leave a residue. Second, it doesn’t fly off
when Klaus races. Third, rain doesn’t chisel under the edges,
causing the tape to come off. Finally, it’s available commer-
cially at some airplane equipment supply shops.
root to the tip, especially at high angles of attack. Unless miti-
gated, this spanwise flow can cause poor stall characteristics:
tip-stall; increased landing and takeof speeds; and pitch-up at
stall. Spanwise flow also can reduce control-surface efective-
ness and can even blank the areas behind the wing.
To deal with this problem, fences are sometimes used. Fences
are typically flat plates that stick out perpendicular to the wing,
extending from the leading edge to the trailing edge. They dam
up the spanwise flow and shed a vortex at high angles of attack.
This can cause the boundary layer to stay attached longer, which
can delay stall and improve control system efectiveness.
Vortilons are another tool to battle high angle-of-attack
flight qualities. Like fences, vortilons are typically flat plates
that stick out perpendicular to the wing. But vortilons extend
from the lower surface past the leading edge. Compared to
fences, vortilons have less drag in normal flight because of their
smaller wetted area.
Here’s where Klaus’ innovative thinking paid off for him
and hundreds of EZ pilots who have used his idea. He looked
at fences that cover the entire chord of the wing and thought
of a better way. Spanwise flow doesn’t just travel along the
wing; it flows behind the wing, too. So Klaus shrank the size
of the fences and designed them to extend past the trailing

28 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014 Photography by Lynne Wainfan

edge of the wing. Trailing-edge fences have many advan-
tages over similar devices. They have less drag than vortilons
because they affect less of the wing; they have less drag than
regular fences for the same reason; they have less wetted
area than regular fences; and they are mostly inside the
boundary layer.
Figure 9 (and Figure 7) show Klaus’ 4-inch-tall trailing-edge
fences. Fences can be installed at various locations on a wing,
but Klaus’ are placed on the wing near each end of the ailerons
to increase aileron efectiveness and to reduce spanwise flow,
which is highest during aileron deflection. “On swept wings,
fences should not be installed on aileron control surfaces since
this loads them up to the point that roll authority is all but lost,”
he cautioned. Figure 10: Klaus occasionally uses this zig-zag tape to trip the boundary layer on
his wing.

When Klaus oiled up his airplane, he was surprised to find

that the transition to turbulent flow was not where convention-
al wisdom predicted. “Surprise!” he reported. “The transition
was at 62 percent of the chord, 5 percent aft of the predicted
location of the GAW-2 airfoil. It was way farther back than ex-
pected.” If he hadn’t understood the situation by visualizing his
flow, he would have put the zigzag tape too far forward, giving
up those precious few inches of laminar flow.
So why did he find that his boundary layer transitioned later
than experts predicted? Klaus believes that the turbulence in
free air is much lower than in any wind tunnel. Readers are
invited to send in thoughts on this potentially important theory.
Boundary layer trippers aren’t just useful on wings.
Figure 11 shows Klaus’ landing gear, with zigzag tape on the
strut and wheelpant.

Figure 9: A trailing edge fence.

The trailing-edge fences’ efect on low-speed performance

was remarkable. Klaus’ testing on the VariEze showed “it was
immediately noticed that takeof distance is reduced 10 to 15
percent; climb rate is improved 20 percent; and most notice-
ably, approaches can be flown at least 10 to 15 percent slower,
resulting in a significantly shorter landing distance—nearly
30 percent less. There was a measurable increase in top speed
above 10,000 feet.”
Recall from my article “Vortilons, VGs, and Fences, Oh
My” that it is sometimes helpful to trip the boundary layer
from laminar to turbulent slightly forward of where it would
naturally transition. Klaus used his flow visualization methods
to find the transition zone and the ideal place to trip the flow to
turbulent. Figure 10 shows the zigzag tape that Klaus some-
times uses to trip the boundary layer on his wing. Figure 11. More zig-zag tape on the wheelpant trips the boundary layer there as well.

EAA Experimenter 29
KLAUS SAVIER’S DETERMINATOR
Although Klaus’ plane appears perfectly built, with
absolutely no ripple on the wing, his flow visualization re-
vealed another surprise. He said, “On a recent laminar flow
test, I noticed that the extent of the laminar flow varied
slightly between the two winglets. One has more laminar
flow on top (inboard) and less on the bottom (outboard)
than the other. This clearly indicates that the installed inci-
dent is slightly different.”
One of Klaus’ remarkable traits is that he is completely
honest: He reports his failures as well as his successes; he
shows photos of his instruments to prove his performance
claims; and he doesn’t talk about anything he hasn’t done
yet. He has an extremely high reputation in the industry for
his integrity.
Perhaps the most innovative concept Klaus has come up
with isn’t even obvious to people looking at the Determina-
tor. Other Long-EZs use a so-called NACA duct engine cool-
ing air inlet on the bottom of the fuselage. The NACA duct
was invented in 1945 by the National Advisory Committee
for Aerodynamics (NACA), a precursor to NASA. It came up
with a design for a standardized, low-drag submerged duct,
as shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12: A standard NACA cooling air duct.
The reason the duct starts out narrow and then widens is
to increase the area slowly to avoid flow separation. The ver-
tical sides of the duct produce two counter-rotating vortices
that roll off the sides and into the duct. These vortices cause
more air to move into the duct than normally would.
Klaus looked at NACA ducts that had been in use for 70
years and wondered something: “How do the two vortices
created by the duct shape fit into the rectangular opening?”
So Klaus played with the shape of the edges of the inlet. Fig-
ure 13 shows the duct he flies on the Determinator.
30 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
Figure 13: The duct Klaus designed for the Determinator.
The result? Klaus got a two-fer. “I saw an improvement;
both a reduction in drag and an increase in cooling,” he said.
Aerodynamicists have been known to say that they would
sell their grandmother for 15 counts of drag. If that is the case,
then Klaus can measure his aerodynamic improvements in
deca-grannies!
WEIGHT
Extra aircraft weight costs performance in a number of areas.
For instance, the wing needs to develop more lift, which in-
creases the drag. The need for more lift means that the heavier
airplane will stall at higher speed than the lighter one. It takes
more control authority to get the same angular rates with more
weight, especially if that weight is toward the front/back or
left/right of the aircraft. Extra weight means more load on
structural members, meaning they might have to be sturdier
and heavier. More weight might mean a shift in the airplane’s
center of gravity.
On the other hand, reducing weight arbitrarily could get you
into trouble, too. Of course, cutting back on structural elements
is a problem, but even cutting back on that wing skin thick-
ness or heavy counterweight could increase the risk of flutter.
On the Facetmobile, the two counterweights on the elevons
weighed 7 pounds, and they afected the CG of its light, long
airplane. It goes without saying (although some should have
been told) that you need to know what you’re doing if you plan
to increase or decrease your airplane’s weight.
Klaus naturally applied his methodical, persistent approach
to cutting weight on the Determinator. For example, when he
was changing the injector location, he made an all-carbon-fiber
intake plenum. He also built a 9-quart oil sump that weighs 2.1
pounds. The sump alone saved 11 pounds.
Klaus again warns that such engine parts require a specific
process. “They should be vacuumed for reduced porosity and
only use cured epoxy from an oven at least 300°F,” he warned.
Some of Klaus’ other weight-saving changes include
replacing the plywood and glass firewall with a high-temper-
Photography by Lynne Wainfan
ature foam, carbon-sandwich structure, which saved several
pounds. He innovatively combined weight savings and aerody-
namic improvements with his wheelpants. “The new wheel-
pants have the split line at the laminar transition so no zigzag
tape is required,” he said. “They weigh only 21 ounces with
paint and hardware.”
Smaller weight-savings opportunities that Klaus took on
are too numerous to list. “I put in a great deal of efort to make
things light,” he said. “But the result was the lightest Long-EZ
with a Lycoming IO-360 engine. Most such airplanes weigh in
at over 1,100 pounds. Mine is 900 pounds.”
THE DETERMINATOR’S PERFORMANCE
The Determinator, with its propulsion, aerodynamic, and
weight improvements, has transitioned beyond what could
be considered a Long-EZ. “No engineer would ever design a
plane with too much power and too much wing and too little
weight,” Klaus explained. “It turns out for a cross-country ma-
chine, there’s nothing better. At high altitude—17,500 feet—it
loses only 5 or 6 knots over sea level speeds.” Klaus explained
that the airplane “plows” less than others; its wing loading is
only 13 pounds/square foot so the nose stays down when the
air is thin. The Determinator wing doesn’t present as much
area to the wind and has less drag at these lower angles of
attack. “Some popular planes with much heavier six-cylinder
engines can’t even go that high because they just need too
much angle of attack at these altitudes,” he said.
Klaus says that the Determinator is a fast cross-country
machine. “A 900-pound airplane with 250 hp does really well
at altitude,” he said. “It puts out about 250 hp at sea level. Air
at 17,500 feet has half the density, so you still have 125 hp at
altitude. But at 17,500 feet the drag is halved also. Given the
already low-drag airframe, that helps the airplane to go very
fast.” This speed at altitude gets him to Oshkosh from Cali-
fornia quickly. “I’ve never seen a piston airplane that loses so
little speed at altitude.”
How fast does the Determinator fly? At this year’s Bronze
Race at Reno, Klaus averaged 263 mph—and that is going
around in circles, an inefcient flight pattern. Klaus’ average
speed documented for the AirVenture Cup was 270 mph. “A
few Long-EZs with high-compression piston O-360 engines
may top out at 240 mph,” he said. The next fastest Long-EZ in
the AirVenture Cup averaged 229 mph. Klaus is getting almost
20 percent speed improvement over the next best speed-im-
proved Long-EZ at Oshkosh!
Speed isn’t the only performance improvement that Klaus
was after. The efciency-obsessed engineer notes the De-
terminator’s fuel mileage is more than 41 mpg at 250 mph
true airspeed above 15,000 feet. This, plus his 49-gallon fuel
capacity, allows him to fly almost anywhere in the United
States nonstop. Of course, the mileage improves further with
reduction of speed, all the way to around 100 mpg at best glide
speed. (VBG is where all airplanes get their best fuel mileage.)
It is interesting to note that VBG refers to indicated airspeed.
Flying at VBG at 17,500 feet adds about 50 mph to your true
airspeed! A more stock Long-EZ with an O-360 engine at 220
mph would achieve only 25 to 30 mpg, compared to Klaus’
41 mpg—Klaus burns 64 percent less fuel while cruising 14
percent faster!
The fuel efciency of Klaus’ airplanes surprises most ex-
perienced pilots. In 2003, he flew his O-200-powered VariEze
in the Reno National Championship Air Races. At the end of
the week of racing, as pilots stood in line at the cashier to pay
their fuel bill, the other race pilots’ jaws dropped with shock
and envy: Klaus’ bill for the week of flying came to only 17 gal-
lons—and that included the fuel to fly home!
ADVICE
When asked for words of wisdom for other aircraft experi-
menters, Klaus contemplated for a while. Referencing the
time and money he spent making his exhaust heavier, he
advised, “It’s really important that you don’t get too at-
tached to your wonderful ideas. You have to be man enough
to take it back out.” (An alternate phrase used at Boeing
was “You have to be able to admit that your baby is ugly.”)
All people who successfully modify their airplanes know
that the improvement process—to understand the situation,
design a fix, and test the fix—takes some time to master. To
understand the situation, you not only have to pinpoint the
problem element on the airplane, but you have to under-
stand the system—how that one element affects the rest of
the airplane in different flight conditions. To design a fix,
you have to be knowledgeable about what and how to build
and install the improvement. To test the fix, you have to
have a well-planned test program, implemented methodi-
cally by someone competent to flight-test the airplane. As
Klaus’ Determinator demonstrates, it is possible to modify
an airplane to get amazing results. However, it is also
possible to inadvertently mess up an important part of
the system.
Klaus’ final words of wisdom for aspiring aircraft ef-
ficiency experts: “Use an abundance of caution.”
The cautious Klaus reflected back on his hundreds of
ideas to improve his airplane’s propulsion, aerodynamic
configuration, and weight and said, “I make the changes
even though the increment of gain might be so small you
might never measure it.” Klaus does not have sophisticated
instruments or a wind tunnel. But he has the intuition,
the expertise, the persistence—plus the determination—to
undertake a 31-year improvement effort that gives him un-
paralleled efficiency and speed. If slow and steady wins the
race, then Klaus will win many, many races.
Lynne Wainfan has been a private pilot for more than 30 years. Originally
an aerospace engineer, then a manager at Boeing Space, Lynne now
consults and teaches at California State University, Long Beach. Readers
may remember the Facetmobile experimental airplane, which was built
by Barnaby and Lynne Wainfan and Rick Dean.
EAA Experimenter 31
WHAT OUR MEMBERS ARE BUILDING
2014
Perseverance
Awards
Celebrating more builders’ success
BY JOHN MANGOLD
THIS MONTH WE WILL wrap up our recognition of homebuilders
who brought their aircraft to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh for the
first time since completing it. Each year, those builders are rec-
ognized with a Perseverance Award to acknowledge the work
and investment they made to complete their projects.
The Perseverance Award was founded by Doc and Buddy Bro-
kaw (now deceased) who built and flew a Brokaw Bullet for many
years. The award continues in their honor and to fulfill their wish
that homebuilders be recognized for their perseverance.
Over the next few months, we will share photos of several
aircraft that made their first appearance at Oshkosh 2014.
— Mary Jones
ZENITH 601XLB, N678AK
Pavlou Kanellos built this Zenith 601XLB over seven years,
having to rebuild it after receiving the upgrade kit for the
spar and wing improvements. The airplane was certificated
in April 2014, and he made the first flight that month. It has
an all-glass panel and is equipped with an autopilot. Pavlou
flew the airplane to Oshkosh from the Groton–New London
Airport (KGON) in Connecticut.
32 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
RV-7A, N787KV
Peter Richmond flew his RV-7A to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh
2014 from Annapolis, Maryland, where he lives on a boat and
bases his plane at Easton/Newnam Field (KESN). The air-
plane was certificated and first flown in February 2014, after
five years of build time. Peter was inspired to build a plane
by his brother, who also flew his RV to AirVenture 2014 from
Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and parked and camped next to
Peter and his airplane.
BEARHAWK, N805TD
Jared Yates purchased this four-place Bearhawk from another
builder. Altogether, it took four years and 2,500 hours to com-
plete the project. It was certificated and first flown in Decem-
ber 2013. The aircraft is powered by a Lycoming O-360 engine.
Jared is based in Hickory, North Carolina. At AirVenture 2014,
he displayed his plane in the Bearhawk exhibit in the Home-
builder’s North Aircraft Display Area.
SUPER BREEZY, N149X
This Super Breezy was flown to Oshkosh 2014 from Yakima,
Washington, by Paul Breed and Ian Kluft. It’s powered by a
Lycoming TIO-360-C1A engine. This year marked the 50th
anniversary of the Breezy, and a number of Breezys flew to
Oshkosh to celebrate the event.
RV-10, N779DS
Dana Saucier flew the second RV-10 in that flight of three
airplanes from Ohio. His airplane received its airworthiness
certificate in November 2013 after four years of construc-
tion. It’s powered by an IO-540-C4B5 engine. He also flies
from the Delaware Municipal Airport (KLDZ) in Ohio.

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EAA Experimenter 33
WHAT OUR MEMBERS ARE BUILDING
SUPER CUB, N7836W
Ted Waltman bases his Super Cub, a Backcountry Cub kit, at
Platte Valley Airpark (18V) in Colorado. The aircraft took 16
months and 1,800 hours to complete. It was certificated and
first flown in June 2014. It is powered by an IO-375 engine pro-
ducing 205 hp and swinging a constant-speed propeller. The
airplane has a 38.5-foot wingspan and leading edge slats and
cruises at 85 mph with a 6-gph fuel burn. It lands at 22 mph.
Sheet Metal for
Kit Aircraf
EAA SportAir Workshop
instructor Mark Forss walks
you through the terms, tools,
and skills required to build
the aircraf of your dreams.
Visit ShopEAA.com or call
1-800-564-6322 to order or
for more information.
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Non-member price
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ShopEAA.com | Copyright © 2014 EAA
34 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
RV-9A, N987J
Brice Johnson is the owner and builder of this RV-9A. The air-
plane received its airworthiness certificate in December 2013, and
its first flight occurred in February 2014. The airplane took nine
years to complete. Brice said it was challenging to learn about
the electronics to complete the airplane, but it was a rewarding
project. He flew to Oshkosh from Federal Way, Washington, which
also took more than three days because of bad weather.
SportAir
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Jan. 31-Feb. 1 ......Van’s RV Assembly................................................................Waco, TX
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Sheet Metal, Electrical Systems, Gas Welding,
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RV-10, N410BL RV-6A, N9806A
Bob Lefer flew his RV-10 to AirVenture 2014 from Delaware, Steve Allison’s RV-6A was certificated in December 2013
Ohio, in a flight of three with another RV-10 and a Cozy. Bob and first flown in March 2014. The airplane took 20 years to
completed his -10 after six years of building; it was certificated build, and he spent three days en route to AirVenture 2014
in July 2013, and the first flight was made in November 2013. from San Jose, California, because of weather delays. One
The aircraft is powered by a Lycoming IO-540-D4A5 engine. of Steve’s goals at AirVenture was to get ideas for the paint
While he was building his -10, two other RVs were being con- scheme for his airplane, which is powered by a Lycoming
structed on his residential block—another RV-10 and an RV-7. O-360-A1A rated at 180 hp. Steve’s father, a retired Air Force
Bob and his neighbors are laying claim to the title of most RVs fighter pilot, attended AirVenture for the first time, flying in
per capita in the United States. with Steve’s brother.

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EAA Experimenter 35
HINTS FOR HOMEBUILDERS

That’s Not Above: Sean’s Destiny 2000 powered parachute. Below: The replaced U-brackets.

Normal
Check your brackets!
BY SEAN CURRY

Editor’s Note: This month we’re deviating slightly from ofering

a hint for homebuilders to share this important safety hint for
powered parachute pilots. The machine this problem occurred
on is a Destiny 2000 powered parachute, but it might behoove
owners of other machines to check their machines out thorough-
ly as well. As you put your machines away for winter, give them
a thorough inspection.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS ago, my wife and I were at a local fly-in.

One evening the weather was great, so we decided to go for a
flight. Kite-up and takeof seemed normal, but as we started to
climb, I noticed that the machine, a Destiny 2000 powered
parachute, started turning left at a good rate. I had trees and
power lines to clear, so I continued to climb until I reached a
safe altitude before trying to check out what was going on. I
thought the torque of the engine or maybe the wind was afect-
ing the machine.
I leveled out at 400 feet and began my review of the situa-
tion. This machine has flown straight as an arrow since the day
I got it, but I had to pull in about a foot of steering line on the
right to get it to go straight. I started checking out the chute
and everything looked normal. I made a couple of turns to make

36 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014

sure the wind wasn’t afecting the machine. We landed so I I recommend anyone who owns a similar Destiny
could check out the machine to see what the problem might be. machine to take a close look at all of the brackets on his
After landing, I looked over the chute lines and risers, and machine. After 15 years, vibration and stresses of flight can
again, everything seemed fine. The next day, a couple of other and will take a toll on parts. As in my case, a normal pre-
pilots helped me check out the machine and chute. We even flight might not catch this problem. If something doesn’t
turned the chute over so we could check out the top. Noth- seem normal, there is a reason. Don’t stop looking until you
ing appeared wrong with the chute. We checked out the cart, find the problem!
grabbed and shook each tube like I do when I pre-
flight, and could find nothing wrong. Since the winds
were up the next couple of days, I decided not to test-
fly it again until I got it home and had time to look
over the machine one more time.
When we got back home, and while I was un-
strapping my machine in the trailer, I noticed a small
piece of metal sitting on the floor under my machine.
My wife and I started looking to see where the metal
could have come from, and she noticed a cracked
U-bracket on one of the diagonal tubes. We checked
the other side and found that the metal piece had
come from that U-bracket. When not under load, the
bracket was around the bolt and didn’t move. When
under load in flight, the bracket moved away from
the bolt and allowed the machine to flex enough
to make the engine thrust to cause the turn. After
checking over every bracket on the machine, I found
two more brackets that were cracked. They were all
the aluminum ones that came with the machine orig-
inally. After finding this, I called a friend who owns
another Destiny 2000 of similar age. He found that
the same brackets were cracked on his machine, and
he also found others that were deformed or cracked. The fatigued brackets.

HINTS FOR HOMEBUILDERS VIDEOS

HERE’S SOME OF THE MORE RECENT VIDEOS ADDED TO EAA’S CADRE OF MORE THAN 400 HOMEBUILDER HINTS VIDEOS:

Rod End Bearing Installation

Brian Carpenter from Rainbow Aviation Services provides tips on the installation of rod end bearings.

Cutting Dacron sailcloth

Brian also shows how to cut dacron sailcloth by modifying a soldering iron into a hot knife.

Cable End treatment

Next, Brian demonstrates a way to permanently eliminate frayed cable ends.

Balancing Your Propeller

Here’s a hint that everyone can use…Brian shows us an easy and effective way to balance a propeller.

Photography courtesy of Sean Curry EAA Experimenter 37

UNDER THE COWL
The D-motor in the B.O.T. SC07 aircraft, imported into the U.S. by Renegade Aircraft, www.renegadelightsport.com.
Introducing the D-motor
Belgian engine manufacturer throttles up
BY MARINO BORIC
THE ENGINE CHOICES AVAILABLE for the ultralight, light-sport,
and experimental markets were, in the recent past, fairly
limited, with the default industry standard Rotax 912 engine
leading the way. That situation changed in the last several
years with the introduction of several interesting engines
designed solely for light aviation use, including the Jabiru,
ULPower, and others, along with several auto conversion
engines, such as the VW and Corvair, that gained increased
popularity in the experimental market.
Among those newcomers is the Belgian D-motor. The
D-motor was first presented in Europe in 2010 as the
four-cylinder LF26 engine with 80 hp. In 2013, D-motor
followed that with the 125-hp, direct-drive LF39 engine. In
2013 the LF26 (the numbers behind the “LF” stand for en-
gine displacement in liters) reached the final development
stage and went into serial production at 92 hp. Now the
Belgian manufacturer is working on production of a new,
six-cylinder LF39 engine, which recently began test flights.
38 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
Although D-motor’s engines look pretty conventional,
they have characteristics that can’t be found in almost any
other current engine. Despite the fact that the D-motor
engines were designed in the last decade, some of their
design features originated from the past. Side valves or
the “flathead” design used in postwar times and an ECU
electronic ignition don’t seem to fit together at first glance.
This unusual mix made me curious. And it’s one of the main
reasons why I decided to visit the D-motor plant in Deer-
lijk, Belgium, and get the design features explained by one
of the company owners, Alain Dejager.
When I arrived in Deerlijk in the southwestern part
of Belgium, I was looking for an aircraft engine manufac-
turer, but at the address listed I found only a car body shop.
Nevertheless, I rang the bell and Alain Dejager received me
personally. Alain explained that this automotive business,
M & M Cars, provides the financial base for the aviation
engine development.
Photography by Marino Boric
The actual engine production facility is located within a
stone’s-throw distance of the car company. When we got
there, I found a completely different world; a modern fac-
tory with computer-aided lathes and an engine assembly
line with an engine test bench.

SIDE-VALVE, ‘FLATHEAD’ ENGINE

Both engines—the four-cylinder LF26 and the six-cylinder
LF39—look similar, although the new LF39 six-cylinder
looks much more “intimidating” with its longer engine
block. All D-motor engines are liquid-cooled, fuel-injected,
four-stroke, flat-opposite engines with direct drive to
the propeller.
On each cylinder head, pairs of spark plugs protrude,
sitting halfway between the pistons and the laterally lo-
cated valves. Typically, spark plugs are not located here,
but these cylinder heads and the “flathead” location of the
intake and exhaust valves beside the cylinders is the unique The D-motor assembly line in Belgium.
feature of D-motor engines. Currently, D-motor is the only
aviation engine manufacturer using the side-valve, “flat-
head” design. The pistons and cylinders are conventionally
built with a bore/stroke of 103.6/80 mm.
The side valves dictate the unusual design of the
combustion chambers and the position of the intake and
exhaust valves. The valves of the LF26/39 engines are not
located above the pistons in the cylinder head; rather
they are beside and below the cylinder. The stems of the
valves are parallel to the cylinder walls, and the valve
tops are facing toward the engine center and toward the
single camshaft.
The camshaft that actuates the intake and exhaust
valves is located below the crankshaft so short pushrods
are used. In normal engines where the valves are located
above the pistons, we can find pushrods that are more
than 10 inches long. If you take off the cylinder head of
a conventional engine, you will see a round, hemispheric The cylinders of the four-cylinder engine LF26 (top) and the six-cylinder engine
combustion chamber directly above the piston. Because the LF39 (bottom).
valves of the side-valve D-motor engine are located beside
the cylinder, the combustion chamber is unusually laterally
developed. A part of the combustion chamber, about two-
thirds of it, is above the piston and the rest of it is alongside
the cylinder—above the valves. Thus instead of the usual
circular-shaped combustion chamber, we find a kidney-
shaped combustion chamber protruding alongside of the
cylinder perimeter. The result of this flathead design is a
very slender and narrow engine.
This combustion chamber/valve design was in regular
street use almost 50 years ago. In the United States, the
most common and most famous side-valve engine was the
Ford side-valve V-8 or flathead used in automobiles from
1932 to 1953. A similar design was used in Moto Guzzi mo-
torcycles in Europe in the pre- and postwar period.
The disadvantage of the side-valve engine is that the air- Alain Dejager showcased the six-cylinder engine, the LF39, at the French Blois
flow characteristics of the design are far from optimal. On Fly-In this fall. The scale was indicating 175 pounds.

EAA Experimenter 39
UNDER THE COWL
This image of the upside-down engine shows the flat cylinder head cover...
...and below it the extraordinary flat cylinder head. For a better explanation, two
cylinder-heads are pictured--one from inside (above) and the other from outside (below).
Close-up of the “real” cylinder head; because of the engine’s flathead design, the valves
are not located in the cylinder head. Instead, they are located below it parallel to the
cylinder barrel.
40 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
the intake stroke, the intake valve will open, and the suc-
tion caused by the downward movement of the piston will
draw the air/fuel mixture into the cylinder and cylinder
head. The intake air/fuel mixture flow path is not smooth.
The flat surfaces and internal corners are not conducive
to good airflow. Usually there are too many obstructions
that cause turbulence and airflow eddies that impede ef-
ficient air movement. The same thing happens during the
exhaust stroke.
When I asked the D-motor designers about this subop-
timal side-valve engine characteristic, I got the following
answer: “That is true and we can’t deny these facts. We
have tested countless cylinder heads solutions with dif-
ferent combustion-chamber shapes until we reached the
present optimal shape. Because our engine is directly driv-
ing a propeller (low rpm engine), those nonoptimal engine
characteristics don’t affect our engines.” That is pretty
correct because this airflow inefficiency is not a problem
for low revolving engines, and the LF26/39 engines turn at
3,000 rpm. At D-motor they are particularly proud of the
safety aspect of their engines. They said, “When a valve
of a conventional overhead engine does not close, the en-
gine stops and is likely to be ruined. When a valve of a side-
valve engine does not close, the engine develops less power
but it will not stop running and there won’t be expensive
repair cost.”
The engine block is divided in two halves vertically. The
crankshaft protrudes out of the front part of the engine
block with a prop-flange attachment (different length
prop flanges can be ordered); on the rear, the crankshaft
ends with a toothed gear that drives the single camshaft.
The camshaft ends on the engine front with an oil pump.
Neither of the four-stroke engines has cooling liquid or oil
thermostats, but they can be fitted if required.
ENGINE PRODUCTION
The D-motor factory has its own molds for the engines,
and most of its aluminum engine parts are machined in-
house, making them less dependent on outside suppliers.
Another interesting engine detail is that the cylinders and
cylinder heads are not screwed to the engine block by long
steel studs, such as with the Rotax 912 engines. Instead the
cylinders are bolted to the engine block with short screws,
as with Lycoming engines. The cylinder heads are screwed
by even shorter screws to the cylinder bodies. Nonmoving
engine parts are aluminum, while the crankshaft, camshaft,
and connecting rods are steel, of course. The cylinder walls
are Nikasil coated. Because of these material choices and
because the engines have a relatively low number of parts,
they don’t weigh much. The 92-hp, four-cylinder engine
weighs only 126 pounds (58 kilograms). The 135-hp six-
cylinder engine weighs 170 pounds (78 kilograms). Those
numbers are for dry weight and include the exhaust,
intake, fluid coolant, and the oil tank. Wet weight with
Photography by Marino Boric
liquids for the LF26/39 engines are 137/185 pounds (63/85
kilograms), respectively.

CLEAN ENGINE TOP

The upper portion of the D-motor engine is unusually
“clean” for a liquid-cooled engine. There are only two hoses
on the four-cylinder engine and four cooling hoses on the
six-cylinder engine that lead to the coolant collector, and
the intake and exhaust are located below the engine, which
allows for a very flat engine cowling.

UNCOMMON FIRING ORDER

The firing order of the D-motor engines is different. Nor-
mally, the firing order in four-cylinder engines is 1-3-4-2.
The four-cylinder D-motor firing order is 3-1-4-2. This
sequence was chosen a few years ago because the vibra-
tions of the engine featuring the modified firing order was The intake manifold is located below the engine; note the two short high-pressure
significantly lower than in those with a conventional firing fuel rails and four injectors.
order. Even if this seems to be an easy conversion, in reality
it wasn’t. D-motor has solved all related problems, and the
engine now runs smoothly.

PROPRIETARY ECU AND FUEL INJECTION

As is common for a modern engine, a computerized en-
gine control unit (ECU) is responsible for ignition and
fuel injection. This ECU comes from the company called
Optimax. A single-channel unit (with an emergency backup
mode) is delivered with the LF26 four-cylinder, and a twin,
independent-channel unit will be delivered with the LF39
six-cylinder engine. Two spark plugs per cylinder are stan-
dard on both engines. On request, the newest, redundant
dual-channel unit also can be ordered for the four-cylinder
engine—a $1,300 (1,000 euros) option.
D-motor’s proprietary engine pickup sensor detects
4,096 pulses per crankshaft turn. This allows D-motor
technicians not only to monitor the engine but also to sense This is the compact engine block (above), with the cylinders removed (below).
acceleration pulses from each mixture ignition in the en-
gine and address possible problems in each cylinder. This
sensor/pickup is a D-motor product.
The LF39 six-cylinder engine is running. During my
factory visit in May, the six-cylinder engine was already
running (more than 30 hours) on the D-motor proprietary
test bench, so I could see and feel the smooth-running
engine properties. I was allowed to see some (uncorrected)
engine performance numbers on the dyno. I saw that the
LF39 delivered 60 kilowatts and 275 Nm of torque at 2,000
engine rpm. In the meantime, this engine is being flown in
a German helicopter and in D-motor test aircraft.
After the factory tour, I was able to test-fly the LF26
engine on board the company’s B.O.T. SC07 airplane. The
flight was pretty short. But the engine was powerful and its
vibration level is one of the lowest on the market today.
The start sequence of the four-cylinder is very simple.
Turn the fuel pumps on and select both channels of the

EAA Experimenter 41
UNDER THE COWL
ECU. After a short turn of the ignition key, with the OAT at
30°C, the engine went alive almost instantly. ECU checks
take place at 2200 rpm; that consists of switching between
the two independent channels and basically comparing
the engine numbers. This ECU check is only doable if the
optional two-channel ECU is installed. In flight, both chan-
nels of the ECU are active, each controlling separate igni-
tion coils and spark plugs.
After the engine start, the engine stabilized at just under
800 rpm at idle, and after barely five minutes, coolant and
oil temperatures were in green.
During taxi to the runway, I was impressed by the quiet,
smooth-running engine and pleasant exhaust sound. At
start, as well as in flight, the engine responded very quickly
to different throttle settings, without the engine show-
ing any uncertainties or inertia (delay) after the throttle
change. At full-throttle (WOT) straight and level flight, the
This is the all new double ECU used on the LF39 engine (standard on LF39,
optional on LF26); the “B” channel is in use.
When the two-channel ECU is installed, the engine panel will look like this; note
the two (left and right) ECU channel selector buttons.
42 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
noise level increased considerably, and I could hardly dis-
tinguish the noise from that of a Rotax engine. I liked the
engine most at a speed of 100 mph (160 kilometers/hour),
where the engine rotated at 2,400 rpm with a MAP of 24
inches Hg. The display indicated a consumption of 2.9 gph
(11 liters) at that power setting. The average of the previous
flights was indicated with 2.84 gallons/hour (13 liters). At
low throttle settings below 2000 rpm, the engine sound was
pleasantly unobtrusive and not annoying. At these speeds,
you could clearly hear the sound of the slowly revolving,
direct-drive engine. While taxiing on the ground after land-
ing with open doors, I loved the engine sound. Even with-
out a special absorbing silencer, the engine was quiet. For
me, the engine was almost too quiet. Alain Dejager laughed,
saying, “So far we were able to solve all engine problems;
we are going to fix even this one for you.”
D-MOTOR’S HISTORY
The history of D-motor engines crosses at its beginning
with another Belgian engine manufacturer, ULPower. Both
engines originated with the Belgian Masquito M80 heli-
copter project that was originally powered by a two-stroke
Rotax 582 and later by the Jabiru 2200. Since those engines
were not strong enough, in 2004, D-motor and ULPower
developed their own engines for that project. A few
shareholders of Masquito Aircraft founded ULPower
Aero Engines.
Other Masquito technicians founded Mascotte, the com-
pany that developed the Masschi 105 engine. In 2006 that
company took over the Masquito project and continued
with it until 2008. Later, D-motor was established and the
project was resumed. The LF26 debuted in 2010 in Brus-
sels, Belgium, and at AERO Friedrichshafen in Germany.
That same year the engine had its maiden flight in an
X-Air microlight.
D-motor plans to raise the company’s registered capital
to $4 million through an agreement signed in April 2014
with a Chinese investor and distributor of the D-engine
products in Asia.
Currently, the six-cylinder engine is flying on the
company’s own test aircraft in Belgium, and since June, on
board of the German EDM Aerotec CoAX 2D/2R helicopter
where it has logged 100 flying hours. As of September 2014,
the temporary retail price of the LF39 is $19,900, according
to the U.S. importer, Doc Bailey. According to Doc, the price
includes the muffler, mounting hardware, coolant lines, and
dual ECU—basically everything but the battery, prop, and
radiator. The first six-cylinder engines are now on the way
to European aircraft manufacturers.
For more information, visit www.D-motor.eu.
Marino Boric, EAA 1069644, is an aeronautical engineer and holds a
private pilot license in Germany with commercial and instrument ratings
(CPL/IFR). He also flew as a military pilot.
Photography by Marino Boric
Aircraft | Personal Non-Owned | Powered Parachute & WSC Trike | Accidental Death & Dismemberment | Flight Instructor | Hangar | Airport
ULTRALIGHT WORLD

Tailor-made
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Like builders and restorers who tailor-make the
intricate details of their aircraft, we take the time
to evaluate all your coverage options to tailor
a plan that won’t fall short of the mark.

Insurance
Visit EAA.org/tailormade or call us
toll-free at 866-647-4322 for a quote.

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© 2013 Experimental Aircraft Assoc., Inc.

EAA Experimenter 43
ULTRALIGHT WORLD
The Six-Chuter P3 Lite single-seat powered parachute.
Six Chuter International
Powered Parachutes Announces
New Ultralight P3 Lite
Go flying for less than $10,000!
REPRINTED FROM THE SIX CHUTER INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER
SIX CHUTER INTERNATIONAL LLC recently announced the produc-
tion of its all-new ultralight powered parachute (PPC)
model called the P3 Lite. The P3 Lite is a single-seat
PPC that meets the strict requirements of FAR 103 for
ultralight aircraft.
The model is equipped with a Kawasaki 440A engine,
an Ultra-Prop, simple instrumentation, and a Performance
Designs (PD) Barnstormer 360 canopy. The model is being
offered for $9,995 in kit form, and the company includes a
$500 coupon for training at that price.
The P3 Lite is built on a strong but light airframe made
of aluminum and chromoly steel components. The Kawasaki
engine is rated by the engine manufacturer at 750 hours
between overhaul.
The Barnstormer 360 canopy is easy to fly and ofers great
performance. The seat is an oversized molded plastic seat
with optional padded upholstery. The seatbelt is a heavy-duty,
“racing”-style belt with shoulder straps.
44 Vol.3 No.12 / December 2014
The P3 Lite is ofered in two standard colors, black or white.
The molded seats are available in a variety of colors, and the op-
tional upholstery is likewise available in various colors. The PD
360 canopy has several stock colors or can be custom designed
at no extra cost.
Doug Maas, president of Six Chuter and director of mar-
keting, outlined the objectives of the design. These included
making a true, legal ultralight PPC that could be more easily
manufactured and easily and quickly built from kit form. The
price objective was to hit the market with a retail price under
$10,000. The design also is intended to make a slightly smaller
footprint for ease of transport while increasing the comfort and
fit for even taller and larger pilots.
These were quite formidable goals given the cost of materi-
als and the existing competition in the market.
Maas explained that the primary driver for the project was
when Rotax announced the discontinuation of its popular 503
engine series. That engine had been used on Six Chuters and
Photography courtesy of Six Chuter International
many other PPCs for more than 20 years. Once that engine was
no longer available, the search for a reliable, well-supported,
good-performing, and cost-efective replacement began. The
Kawasaki 440A engine has been in the field for more than 20
years and was predominantly used on fixed-wing ultralight
airplanes and weight-shift trikes, so it is well proven.
Once the engine was chosen, Dan Bailey, founder of Six
Chuter Incorporated, began to design an airframe around that
engine. His design took into account the company objectives of
easy manufacturing and strict price control. Ultimately the de-
sign hit the mark with an airframe that is not only lighter than
previous Six Chuter single-seat models but also stronger.
Maas said that the project has taken nearly two years to
complete. That might surprise many, given the machine’s
simple design. But the desire not to just roll out another ultra-
light in an already crowded market, but rather to do so within
the company’s objectives for price control, quality, and perfor-
mance, required a lot of teamwork and a lot of time to do right.
The engine testing and the production test flights proved that
the team had achieved the design objectives. Test pilots Mark Mar-
tin and Paul Beam found that it is easy to kite the canopy; the PPC
is very light and responsive on controls; and it has performance that
is well suited for entry-level powered parachute pilots. They added,
however, that experienced PPC pilots will also enjoy the “sporti-
ness” of the Barnstormer 360 canopy. And everyone should enjoy
the ease of learning to fly and the ability to enjoy ongoing legal fly-
ing that avoids the higher costs and complications of earning a pilot
certificate to operate two-place powered parachutes.
Tom Connelly, operations manager and co-owner of Six
Chuter International, reported that the average builder should
be able to fully assemble and prepare this aircraft for flight in
about a week’s time. Connelly and Bailey have developed an
easy-to-follow builder’s manual. And Six Chuter International
will provide builder support consultation at no extra charge.
The company will also fully assemble the P3 Lite at an extra
charge, for buyers whose only objective is to learn to fly safely
and quickly and avoid the process of building.
Maas praised his team for its perseverance and hard work,
including: Dan Bailey, designer; Rolando and Ramon Santiago,
assembly and engine testing; Tom Connelly, P3 Lite fabrica-
tion; and Mark Martin and Paul Beam, flight testing. Maas said,
“The P3 Lite in many ways takes us back to the beginning of Six
Chuter powered parachutes. The early start for the company,
founded in 1991, was all with simple, kit-built, ultralight-legal
powered parachutes.”
The P3 Lite joins Six Chuter’s already successful line of
light-sport experimental kits, amateur-built kits, and special
light-sport models. Six Chuter continues to ofer ongoing
support and services to every customer and has nearly 2,200
aircraft operating around the world today. Connelly said that
buyers of the P3 Lite will enjoy the same high level of personal
support that other Six Chuter owners have come to appreciate.
To learn more about the Six Chuter P3 Lite, visit
www.SixChuter.com, or visit the company’s YouTube channel.

EAA Experimenter 45